Supporting Black Pupils and Parents: Understanding and Improving Home-school Relations

Exclusion rates of black children in the UK and around the world continue to rise, highlighting that something is very wrong with the way their teaching and learning is supported in today’s schools. Teachers often blame parents, parents blame teachers, and an unhappy downward spiral ensues. Drawing on her extensive teaching experience, Lorna Cork explores the day-to-day needs and expectations of black parents and their children in education. She focuses on contemporary situations and uses real-life case studies to emphasize the human consequences of the true issues behind the statistics. This topical text offers a detailed look at five key organisations that exist to support black parents. It examines their home-school interventions and discusses the central issues arising out of their efforts. The fascinating evidence offers fresh perspectives and provides much needed advice and guidance to all those seeking to improve co-operation between black families, schools and communities - all who share the goal of supporting the learning and attainment of the black child. Any education professional, student teacher, staff at an LEA, and anyone with a serious interest in race issues is sure to find this essential reading.